"My people," Wexford snapped, "happen to have the law on their side." He added grandiloquently, "They are the law." The frown thawed. "Now we've got the lecture over you'd better tell me just what you and your father have found out."
Charles told him. Wexford listened patiently, but as the evidence against Primero mounted, instead of surprise, his face registered a strange blankness. The heavy features had become brutish, like those of an old bull.
"Of course, you'll say he had an alibi," said Charles. "I realise your people would have checked his alibi and after all these years it's going to be difficult to crack, but..."
"His alibi was not checked," said Wexford.
"What did you say?"
"His alibi was not checked."
"I don't understand."
"Mr. Archery..." Wexford got up and rested his massive hands on the desk, but he didn't move away from behind it. "I am quite happy to discuss this whole matter with you, answer any questions you may like to ask." He paused. "But not in the presence of Miss Kershaw. If I may say so, I think you were unwise to bring her with you."
Now it was Charles's turn to get to his feet. "Miss Kershaw is going to be my wife," he said hotly. "Anything you say to me you can say to her. I won't have any secrets from her in this."
Casually Wexford sat down again. He drew a bunch of papers from a desk drawer and began to study them. Then he lifted his eyes slowly and said: "I'm sorry this has been a fruitless interview for you. With a little co-operation I think I could have saved you a lot of useless enquiry. But, if you'll forgive me, I'm a very busy man so I'll say good afternoon."
"No," said Tess suddenly. "I'll go. I'll wait in the car."
"Tess!"
"Of course I'm going, darling. Don't you see? He can't talk about my father in front of me. Oh, darling be your age!"
He is being his age, thought Archery miserably. Wexford knew something—something that was going to be horrible. But why was he playing this pouncing cat and mouse game with them all, why had he played it with Archery all along? Confidence and strength—but did it cover a fierce inverted snobbism, a fear that the Archeries might shake his authority and trouble the still waters of his district? And yet the man held such sway and was, beyond a doubt, a good, just man. He would never lie or even shift truth to cover a lapse. "His alibi was not checked..." If only they would stop fencing!
Then, suddenly, Wexford stopped it.
"No need to leave the building, Miss Kershaw," he said. "If your—your father would care to take you upstairs—straight along the corridor and turn left when you come to the double doors—you'll find we've got quite a reasonable canteen, even for a lady. I suggest a cup of strong tea and an eccles cake."
"Thanks." Tess turned and just touched Kershaw's shoulder. He rose at once. Wexford closed the door after them.
Charles took a deep breath, and making a brave attempt to lounge casually in his chair, said, "All right, then. What about this alibi that for some mysterious reason was never investigated?"
"The reason," said Wexford, "was not mysterious. Mrs. Primero was killed between six-twenty-five and seven o'clock on the evening of Sunday, September 24th, 1950." He paused to allow Charles's inevitable interruption of "Yes, yes", uttered with fierce impatience. "She was killed in Kingsmarkham and at six-thirty Roger Primero was seen in Sewingbury five miles away."
"Oh, he was seen, was he?" Charles scoffed, crossing his legs. "What do you think, Father? Does it seem remotely possible to you that he could have fixed it beforehand that he'd be 'seen'? There's always some shifty mate who'll perjure himself and say he's seen you for twenty quid."
"Some shifty mate, eh?" Wexford was now hardly bothering to conceal his amusement.
"Somebody saw him. All right. Who saw him?"
Wexford sighed and the smiled was erased. "I saw him," he said.
It was a blow in the face. Archery's love for his son, dormant over the past days, rose within his breast in a hot tide. Charles said nothing, and Archery who had been doing this sort of thing rather a lot lately, tried hard not to hate Wexford. He had taken an unconscionable time coming to the point, but this, of course, was his revenge.
The big elbows rested on the desk, the fingers meeting and pressing together in an implacable pyramid of flesh. The law incarnate. If Wexford had seen Primero that night, there was no gainsaying it, for here was incorruptibility. It was almost as if God had seen him. Horrified, Archery pulled himself up in his chair and gave a dry painful cough.
"You?" said Charles at last.
"I," said Wexford, "with my little eye."
"You might have told us before!"
"I would have," said Wexford mildly and, oddly enough, believably, "if I'd had the remotest idea you suspected him. Chatting up Primero about his grandmother was one thing, pinning murder on him quite another."
Polite now, stiff and very formal, Charles asked, "Would you mind telling us the details?"
Wexford's courtesy matched his. "Not at all. I intend to. Before I do, however, I'd better say that there was no question of hindsight. I knew Primero. I'd seen him in court with his chief on a good many occasions. He used to go along with him to learn the ropes." Charles nodded, his face set. Archery thought he knew what was going on in his mind. Loss was something he knew about, too.
"I was in Sewingbury on a job," Wexford continued, "and I'd got a date to meet a man who sometimes gave us a bit of information. What you might call a shifty mate, but we never got twenty quidsworth out of him. The appointment was for six at a pub called the Black Swan. Well, I had a word with my—my friend, and I was due back in Kingsmarkham at seven. I walked out of the public bar at just on half past six and ran slap bang into Primero.
" 'Good evening, Inspector,' he said, and I thought he looked a bit lost. As well he might. I found out afterwards that he'd been going to meet some pals, but he'd got the wrong pub. They were waiting for him at The Black Bull. 'Are you on duty?' he said. 'Or can I buy you a short snort?' "
Archery nearly smiled. Wexford had given a very fair imitation of the absurd slang Primero still affected after sixteen years of affluence.
" 'Thanks all the same,' I said 'but I'm late as it is.' 'Good night to you, then,' he said and he went up to the bar. I'd only been in Kingsmarkham ten minutes when I got called out to Victor's Piece."
Charles got up slowly and extended a stiff, mechanical hand. "Thank you very much, Chief Inspector. I think that's all anyone can say on the subject, don't you?" Wexford leaned across the desk and took his hand. A faint flash of compassion softened his features, weakened them, and was gone. "I'm sorry I wasn't very polite just now," Charles said.
"That all right," said Wexford. "This is a police station, not a clerical garden party." He hesitated and added, "I'm sorry, too." And Archery knew that the apology had nothing to do with Charles's ill manners.
Tess and Charles began to argue even before they had all got into the car. Certain that they had said it all or something very like it before, Archery listened to them indifferently. He had kept silent for half an hour and still there was nothing he could say.
"We have to be realistic about it," Charles was saying. "If I don't mind and Mother and Father don't mind, why can't we just get married and forget you ever had a father?"
"Who says they don't mind? That's not being realistic, anyway. I'm being realistic. One way and another I've had a lot of luck..." Tess flashed a quick watery smile at Kershaw. "I've had more than anyone would have thought possible, but this is one bit I have to dip out on."